When All Else Fails
by PhantomStriker14
Summary: With a unknown threat looming, and the Avengers completely unprepared, there only hope is a ragtag team that each have their own resons to help. Help save the Avengers, find a team of their own, and restore lost trust. The T rating is only for violence. Set after Captain America 2, with some AU concerning Thor 2. I do not own Avengers.
1. Chapter 1: A Crazy Idea

**Hello everyone, this is my first Avengers fic so feel free to show any mistakes I made. I am an avid Marvel fan so I plan to keep it as cannon as possible. Also this is post Avengers, Iron Man 3, and Captain America 2, but I am going to ignore Thor 2 because it won't work with my story line so Loki is still in the Asgard prison. Enjoy**** ( I do not own Marvel or any of their characters, except for the three OC's that are mine)**

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Chapter 1: A Crazy Idea

The late night air was cool as a dark figure walked the streets of New York City. As the wind picked up, ruffling his short black hair, he pulled his collar from the worn black trench coat closer to his face to protect against the chill. He loved this time of night when the streets were only home to the occasional passerby and taxi, it wasn't completely peaceful but compared to how loud this city was normally, it was dead silent. He would often come down to walk the streets late at night when he couldn't sleep to think and get a better perspective on things, and recently he had had a lot of things to think about.

As he turned a corner he caught sight of the newly renamed Stark Tower, now called Avengers Tower, and let out a heavy sigh while rubbing a hand over his tiered blue eyes. How did he even end up getting in situations like this in the first place, he mused. Rachel had said that something was coming, something big, so big that quote "it would make the Chitauri invasion look like a bank robber with a sling shot" .The worst part was that she thought not even the Avengers would be able to handle this threat on their own, and Rachel was almost never wrong about these types of thing. So the three of them had spent the last few weeks trying to come up with a contingency plan for when the unknown threat finally decided to show itself. But, after they had finally come up with what they thought would be best, he still felt as if there was something missing in this equation. He had spent a lot of nights wandering the streets of the city, trying to figure out why he still had this nagging feeling in the back of his mind that the plan was incomplete. But night after night he would drag himself back to his room feeling more exhausted than before and no further in figuring out what to do.

So with another dejected sigh he turned around and started to walk away, resigning himself to another sleepless night but glanced back once more at the tower. Letting his eyes wander over the tall building; the large glowing letters wrapping around the balcony connecting to the glass wal… THE BALCONY! The man stopped and turned around so fast, that if it wasn't for years of honing his balance he would have fallen flat on his face. "Of course" he whispered to himself as a wide grin spread across his face, "the missing piece to the puzzle". Because as he looked up at the balcony of Avengers Tower he was reminded of who stood there almost one year ago, with a smirk on his face and a glowing scepter in his hand.

The man had to resist the urge to sprint, as he made his way back to tell the other two his last minute addition to the plan. Of course waking them at this hour of the night was probably a good way of meeting "his maker" a lot faster. He decided to risk it, because when he told them his idea they would be less likely to kill him and more likely to think he had just gone insane!He chuckled as he thought to himself, "Sense when has Mark Tridom ever been considered sane".

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**Hope you enjoyed, I have already started on chapter 2 staring Tony Stark! Reviews are very welcome and I will give a shout out to everyone who does. Have a great day and hope to hear from you.**

**-Phantom**


	2. Chapter 2: Just A Normal Day

**Here it is! This one took my A LOT longer then I thought it would but I got it done. Hope you enjoy, follow, favorite and review. Also I don't use any foul language in my stories and the T rating is only for violence.**

**And now ON WITH THE SHOW!**

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Chapter 2: Just a Normal Day

Two weeks later.

The sun was on the rise over the New York skyline. Light poured into the many windows of Avengers Tower and slowly make its way to the head of one sleeping Tony Stark effectively waking him from his for once nightmare free night. After finally deciding to pry himself from the warm confines of bed, he stood and stretched as he walked over to the wall of windows that was in almost every room of the building. Tony didn't know what he was going to do with all this extra sleep he had been getting, 5 hours in the last 4 days. He was ether going to have to find a more time consuming project that Bruce and him didn't finish right away, or continue to annoy his teammates with his new morning "cheerfulness."

After a little while of debating which of the two options would be more rewarding, Tony decided to be a semi-responsible business owner (only because Pepper was out of town) and see if there was anything he _had _to do today.

"JARVIS, gimme' todays line up."

"Yes sir," the calm British voice replied," other than what you like to call your "average Avenger day," you have a charity ball to attend." Tony mentally groaned, he had totally forgot and wondered if there was any way of getting out of it when JARVIS answered him seeming to read his mind.

"Also Miss Potts wanted me to tell you that if she discovers that you were not in attendance she would, quote 'have the Hulk throw you out the window' unquote." A shiver went up Tony's spine as he got a mental picture, she would do that too.

"Fine," he replied as he let out an exasperated sigh, "is anyone else up yet?" he asked as he finally decided to get dressed.

"Yes sir, Captain Rogers is in the kitchen preparing breakfast for everyone as usual." The AI replied.

'Of course' Tony thought to himself heading down the stairs wondering what new recipe Captain Spangles had decided to test on them today.

It had taken almost the whole year after the invasion for him to finally convince everyone that living under one roof was a good idea. Bruce was easy to convince and moved in almost right away, and after the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D a few months ago Clint, Natasha, and Steve agreed to come as well. And finally after making sure his psyco of a brother was not going to escape and 'restoring peace to the nine realms' (whatever that meant) Thor decided to make the set complete. So here they were all living together. Normally other than having breakfast together they didn't see much of each other except on the rare occasion when Steve _insisted _that they should do some sort of team building to be able to work better when the world needed them. But, much to Steve's distain, the "team exercise" usually ended up being them having a movie night, that itself was a battle trying to decide on something everyone would like.

So after Tony was done eating the actually pretty good French toast that Steve made and ignoring the Capsicle's attempts trying to get them to train together (_again!_), he and Bruce left to work on some more projects while everyone else left to do their own thing. He and Bruce worked none stop until around 5 o'clock when JARVIS interrupted their fun saying that Tony needed to start getting ready, to which Bruce swore that a toddler couldn't have sulked out of the room any better.

After Tony got ready, he got into one of his many cars and drove off. He might put up a big fuss over having to go, but he did enjoy these events when Pepper was with him to keep him entertained. So sense she was not with him tonight, this event was probably going to be uneventful. As he drove up to the grandiose building hosting the event he saw the flashing cameras of reporters trying to get the perfect shot of the important people walking in, Tony could not deny that he liked this part of being in the public eye. He was walking up the walkway giving the cameras a good show, when all of a sudden there seemed to be more commotion going on behind him then on him. He was about to turn around and see what was taking the focus away from him when he heard a smooth voice carry above the noise of the crowd.

"Well if it isn't Mr. Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." Tony couldn't help the small smirk that came to his face as he turned to acknowledge the woman behind him, "You forgot genius, _Miss _Tridom" he replied walking back to stand next to the woman who was currently rolling her eyes at him. She was shorter then himself with dark brown hair that came down in waves just past her shoulders, and over her slim frame she wore a long deep blue strapless dress with a split at the bottom that went up to her knee.

"Ah yes," she replied with smile, "we cannot forget about genius now can we, and it's Rachel, Tony. After all, I think business competitors can be civil to each other, and it gives the reporters something to talk about." Her golden eyes glinting as she let out a small chuckle.

"Well than," Tony said clasping his hands together, "what do say we really give them something to talk about?"

Rachel raised an eyebrow, "What would you suggest?"

He gave her a mischievous smile and walked over to her and took her arm in his, "Why a performance of course."

So they each put on wide smiles and started walking up the walkway arm in arm giving small waves to the reporters, who now it seemed couldn't take pictures fast enough of Tony being friendly to one of the owners, of what some could argue Stark Industries only competitors.

As soon as Rachel and Tony got inside they each couldn't help but laugh at the surprised looks they got from everyone outside.

"I can only imagine what the headlines will read tomorrow." Rachel stated with small smile.

"Probable something like, 'Now proven that no one can resist Tony Stark's charm'." Tony said, earning another eye role and unimpressed look from Rachel.

Tony, noticing the group of people in the room dancing and not to be told that his charm did not work on every one, turned to Rachel and with a dramatic bow at the waist said, "May I have this dance, _Miss Tridom._" Putting special emphasis on her name to annoy her further.

Rachel, after giving him the most unamused look she could muster, hesitantly accepted his extended hand. "You're lucky I like to dance so much." She said as they walked out onto the dance floor and slowly started swaying to the music.

"So, where are the other two-thirds of the Tridom's?" Tony asked breaking the silence.

"If you are referring to my brothers," Rachel replied with a smirk at Tony's attempt at a joke, "Justin is running a bit late and will probably spend more time outside with the reporters than anywhere else. He can be even more of an attention hog than you sometimes." She laughed at the offended look Tony was trying to pull off before continuing, "And Mark doesn't really care for events like this."

"Or any event really," Tony retorted, "I mean, I think the only time he shows himself to the public is when the rumors start going around that he has become a shut in, or that he has decided to quite the tech business, or…" Tony was cut short on his rant by a strangling grip on his hand and shoulder by Rachel whose look had darkened while Tony was talking.

"I would appreciate," she said in a voice like ice, "you not repeating those lie's again _Mr. _Stark."

Tony gave a small nod in reply. Wow, she was stronger than she looked he thought to himself, glad that she had released her death grip.

Rachel face returned to its normal small smile as she asked, "How are Earth's Mightiest Hero's doing as of late?"

"Just as mighty as ever, always ready for anything." He replied glad to have changed the subject.

All of a sudden Rachel moved closer to Tony lowering her voice so that she was whispering in his ear, "See that you are," she said softly. "There are threats out there that would seek to catch you off guard." Tony's instinct was to back away from what would at first seem like a threat, but the tone of her voice was full of urgency, and… worry? That didn't seem right, he thought to himself as she continued, "So make sure your team is ready, ready to work _together_."

Just as Tony was about to question what in the world she was talking about, the song they were dancing to ended. Rachel pulled away and gave a smile, "Thank you for the dance Tony," she said, all of evidence of concern gone from her voice. "I'm sure I will see you again soon."

And with that she walked away disappearing into the crowd, leaving Tony speechless. "I guess I found something to occupy my time with." he thought to himself, wondering what could be in store for the Avengers.

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**Hope you liked it, and I will still give shout outs to anyone who reviews. I will start on the next chapter soon but I cannot give a date as to when it will be posted but I will go as quickly as I can.**

**Have a great day:)**


	3. Chapter 3: Intruder Alert

Chapter 3: Intruder Alert

"Why am I always the one voted to do this" Captain Steve Rodgers asked himself, as he stood in the elevator headed down to confront a certain billionaire.

As he waited to reach the desired floor that contained Tony's workshop, he tried to figure out what had had Tony so distracted these last few days. He had been locking himself in the lab for almost 24 hours at a time, even locking Bruce out at one point. Natasha had also noticed that he had bumped up the security in the building as well. All of this wouldn't have been so unusual if Tony had not even bothered to show up when the team was taking down a small HYDRA base. Which all lead to the rest of the team holding a meeting deciding who would go and talk to Tony, and as usual it was he who had been voted to speak for the group.

As Steve got out of the elevator he knew he was on the right floor, if the blaring hard rock music was anything to go on. He saw Tony sitting at his workbench typing away on the floating blue screen in front of him, totally oblivious to Steve walking in.

Steve knew from experience that he could yell all he wanted and it would not be enough for Tony to hear it over the loud obnoxious "music", so Steve picked a discarded paper coffee cup up off the floor and chucked it at Tony's head. It hits its mark causing Tony to jump and turn around with a screwdriver poised to strike.

"Whoa," Steve said holding up his hand, "easy Tony, I'm unarmed." Giving a small smile.

It took a second for realization to show on Tony's face, to which he finally shook his head and turned back to the holographic screen.

"What are you doing down here Steve." He replied in a flat tone.

Steve's smile dropped from his face, something must really be on Tony's mind because he almost never passed up an opportunity to be sarcastic, and since when did Tony just call him Steve!

"I'm down here because you missed a mission yesterday." Steve said sharply.

"You guys had it covered." Tony said keeping his attention on what he was working on.

"We still could have used your help!" Steve was starting to get annoyed at talking to Tony's back, after taking a deep breath to calm himself he walked over to talk to him face to face. "And it's not just that you didn't come and give us back up," he continued, "you've increased the security of the tower, have been working in here non-stop, and have barely spoken to anyone in the last four days, not even to Bruce." Steve took a moment to take in Tony's very haggard looking appearance and only then did he notice the vast amount of discarded coffee cups and energy drinks lying around. "And when was the last time you slept?"

Tony seemed to consider this for a little while and then replied with a shrug, "Don't really know actually. JARVIS?"

"_You are now going on 25 hours, Sir" _The computer offered.

"There you go then." Tony said giving a wide smile, totally ignoring the disapproving look that Steve was giving him while he continued. "As to the other things that you mentioned I am just working on a top secret project that I am not ready to share with the class yet. Will that satisfy your curiosity Captain Spangles?"

Steve gave him good hard look before finally giving a defeated sigh, "Alright then, just make sure you actually show up for the next mission."

"Yes Sir!" Tony nearly shouted, giving an exaggerated salute.

Steve rolled his eyes as he walked back to the elevator, "And try to get some sleep." he said before the blaring music came back on drowning out any and all sound.

- Ŧ-

After Steve had reported his findings to the rest of the team, he decided to call it a night. All of them had agreed there was more to this than just some top secret project.

As he lay in bed staring at the celling wondering about his talk with Tony, he wondered what was making this teammate on edge, and why wouldn't he tell everyone else. Of course other than breakfast in the morning the team really didn't see much of each other, and other than on missions, the team meeting today had been the first sign of working together since the battle of New York. Steve knew that his team mates were each the best at what they did and he never worried that they couldn't handle themselves in battle, but he knew that they still needed to train together so in case a threat like the Chitauri ever came again they would be in top form to work together again. Maybe he would bring it up again tomorrow.

As he felt himself slowly start to drift asleep he found himself thinking about Bucky, it had been four months since Steve had woken up in the hospital after he had taken down the last helecarirer. And ever since then he had been keeping an ear out for any sign of Bucky, he had heard a few rumors about the Winter Soldier being spotted, but they all turned out to be dead ends.

But he would never stop looking, was his last thought before sleep finally came.

-Ŧ-

Steve's eyes snapped open, why in the world had he woken up? He turned his head and after blinking his eyes a few times was able to focus on the glowing red numbers of his clock. 2:14am, way too early for it to just be his internal alarm clock, oh well, maybe he had just had a nightmare or something. As he closed his eyes to try to get back to sleep his advanced hearing picked up a sound, the faintest shuffle of shoes on carpet. No one would have any reason to be on his floor at this hour in the morning, _maybe _Tony if he wanted to tell him something, but he would have had JARVIS just call him and Tony could never be that quite if his life depended on it.

As quietly as he could Steve slowly reached over and grabbed his shield that was leaning against the side table, and brought it up under the sheets to hide it from view. He then closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep. At first he heard nothing but then came the unmistakable sound of his door being opened and footsteps slowly coming closer, and closer. He waited until the intruder was almost on top of him, then in one fluid movement he pushed his shield straight up slamming it into whoever was in his room. Steve then jumped up readying himself for another attack, but when he got a look at the man who was now lying flat on his back; it didn't look like he would be getting up anytime soon.

He walked slowly over to find out who his attacker was, he was a little shocked when he got a look of the intruders face. Even in the dim light Steve was able to see that the man's skin had a red tint to it with black marks crisscrossing on top. He was also wearing a full set of what looked like black armor with a rather large black metal weapon still in his hand. Steve didn't know a lot about weapons but something about this one screamed "not from earth", which meant this was really, really bad. He did know one thing though; he needed to find the rest of the team and fast.

Steve, after making certain his guest was still out cold, quickly made his way over to the door and after checking to be sure that there was no one else coming for him, headed to the stairs. He stayed away from the elevator knowing that would alert the enemy of his movements. He quickly made his way to the next floor up, which was Clint's floor. When he got to the door he slowly peaked his head out and was glad when he didn't see any more "aliens". Quietly as he could, he started going through the halls looking for any sign of Clint or anyone else. It was dark and Steve noticed that not even the security lights were on which meant that the power must be out, or was cut. This thought gave him the smallest twinge of fear with which he quickly shook away.

He was just coming to a turn in the hall when he heard movement. Pressing himself against the wall he stopped to listen and sure enough, there was someone coming towards him. Readying himself he took a deep breath and jumped into the hallway, shield poised to strike and was met with an arrow pointing at him with a very angry looking Hawkeye behind it.

"Clint!" Steve shouted letting his shield drop to his side in relief.

It took Clint a minute to realize that he was aiming at friend not foe, and lowered his bow letting out the breath he had apparently been holding.

"Cap, what the heck is going on?! I wake up with some weird alien looking guy getting ready to shoot me with an even weirder looking gun, and the power is out, and JARVIS isn't even working!" Clint finally finished, looking frustrated and a little out of breath from his short tirade.

"I don't know what's going on," Steve admitted "but as far as I can tell, the tower has been infiltrated and we need to find the rest of the team fast."

Clint gave a sharp nod "Alright then" he said fitting the arrow back to his bow, "let's go kick some alien butt."

Steve gave a small smile at this, but as they headed to the stairs to go search for the rest of the team, he knew something was very wrong here. There were only two people that he knew of who could turn off JARVIS, Tony and Fury, and he was pretty sure that nether one of them were behind this. Another thing he thought of as he and Clint were climbing the stairs to Natasha's floor, was if somebody had tried to attack the others, there would most definitely be a very angry Hulk and Thor smashing things left and right, but the tower was completely silent. This could only mean that the intruders were not on their floors yet or they had already been…no, Steve shook his head to get rid of that thought, everyone else was fine, like he said before, they are able to take care of themselves.

He and Clint stood outside the door to Natasha's floor, Clint pulling his arrow taught on his bow while Steve slowly reached for the door handle. Pushing aside the small fear in his mind, Steve gave a nod to Clint before slowly pushing open the door…

-Ŧ-

**Cliff hangerrrrrrr! I know, I'm mean****. So sorry for the late posting but I was in a wedding last week and only had enough time to write three sentences, but as soon as I got home I wrote it as fast as I could. Next chapter will be up very soon I hope, I have started it and it probably won't be as long this one but who knows. We will be seeing more of the rest of the Avengers next chapter and they will become very involved in the chapters after that so bear with me. Also next chapter is when the action starts so stay tuned, have a great weekend, and REVIEW!**


	4. Chapter 4: Black Out

**Pairings: Slight Pepperoni, not sure about any others yet but there will be no SLASH**

**Disclaimer: If I did own Marvel you would be watching this story on the big screen and not here. So no, sadly I do not own anything of Marvel. I do however own my three OC's**

**Warnings: None for this chapter, maybe some slight violence.**

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Chapter 4: Black out.

Clint was doing his best to ignore the small feeling of fear that was starting to make itself known. These weren't you average run of the mill intruders, they were not only able to cut the power to the whole tower, but almost succeeded in sneaking up on him. That was probably what scared him the most. If he hadn't gotten up in the night to get something to drink, he would have never known there was someone on his floor until it was too late.

As Steve reached out to push open the door to Natasha's floor, Clint focused his thoughts back to the matter at hand. The door swung open soundlessly, letting the two Avengers see into the living room and kitchen that was dimly lit by the lights of the city outside the wall of windows. Clint quickly looked around the room for any sign of more intruders, and gave Cap a silent nod when he was sure it was clear. They slowly made their way into the room, not wanting to rush in if this was some kind of trap. Walking silently towards the dark hallway that lead to the other rooms, they made their way down the hall. Cap took the lead with Clint trailing behind him with an arrow ready to strike anything that would dare attack.

After checking each of the rooms in turn and finding them all empty, they finally were headed to the last door on the left that housed Natasha's bedroom. As they silently neared the closed door, Clint was trying to decide between the two emotions were having a battle in his head right now, relief that they hadn't found anything yet or panic that they hadn't found anything yet!

He and Steve were now standing on either side of the door; the super soldier listened intently for any hint of movement, and after a few seconds gave Clint a nod and moved to face the door. "Focus" Clint finally told himself before Steve gave a sharp kick to the door, forcing it open reveling the dark room beyond. Clint ran into the room with Steve right behind him, quickly scanning the room ready to shoot anything that was not supposed to be there. But as he looked around, he let out a small sigh of relief as he realized there was no one in the room, two seconds later that statement sunk in; there was _no one _in the room.

"This is bad, this is really, really bad." Clint whispered as he walked over to inspect the empty bed.

"Let's not jump to conclusions" Steve replied, keeping his voice low as well, "maybe she's just not on this floor or…"

"No" Clint interrupted as he caught sight of something on the ground, "she would have no reason to be anywhere else at this hour. And she wouldn't have left this." He held up one of Black Widow's guns for Steve to see. "Now can we jump to conclusions? She must have been ambushed by those _things_." Clint began to pace as he continued, "There is almost no evidence of a struggle except for her gun being on the floor, and how many people do you know who can catch _the _Black Widow off guard." Clint's voice rose slightly on the last statement, he was trying his very best not to go into a full blown panic and start running through the building looking for his partner.

"Clint you need to calm down" Steve said quietly, catching the archer's arm to try and stop him from pacing.

Clint ripped his arm away, "Calm down!" he nearly shouted, "Our team mates are getting picked off one by one, we don't know what these things are that are attacking us, and there's no power in this stupid tower!" Clint took a deep breath to try to steady his voice, "Forgive me if I don't feel like calming down."

Steve gave a small sigh, "You are right, this is one of the worst situations we could be in. But," Steve continued with a determined glint in his eyes, "We are not going to give into the fear of what might have happened to them, because that is only going to make us lose focus." Steve stepped towards Clint and placed an encouraging hand on his shoulder, and this time Clint didn't shrug him off. "We are going to stop whoever is doing this and make sure everyone is safe, but first we need a plan. Are you with me?" Steve asked, taking his hand away and waiting for Clint to reply.

Clint took another deep breath to calm himself down, Steve was right, they wouldn't be able to take down this enemy if they were letting panic take over and playing the 'what if' game. A feeling of determination filled him as he nodded in response to Steve's question, "So what's the plan Captain?"

Steve gave a small smile before going completely into Captain Mode, (as Tony liked to call it) whenever Steve gave them the battle plan. "We need to find out if anyone else has been taken without alerting the enemy, so that they don't think that we are on to them. Then once we get as much of the team together as we can, we can figure out what these things are and what they want."

"Where do we start?" Clint asked, eager to start putting some arrows into anything that would dare to mess with his partner.

Steve was just about to answer when they heard a horrific crash from what sounded like the next floor up, the commons floor. Without another word both men were running to the stairs, taking them two at a time. They burst through the doors to find that there were three of the same intruders that had attacked them. They had their backs to them and were training their guns on something in front of them that Steve and Clint couldn't see. They wasted no time, with one throw Steve threw his shield at the first one, knocking him in the head. Before the others had any time to react, the shield bounced off the wall and slammed into the second guy effectively knocking him out as well. By the time Steve's shield had flown back into his hands, Clint already had taken out the last one with a single shot.

"What took you guys so long?!" asked the incredulous voice of one Tony Stark, who had apparently been the target of their attackers.

"You're welcome." Clint deadpanned; knowing that was about as much of 'thank you' you could ever get out of Stark.

"Tony, do you know what in the world is going on?" Steve asked getting right to the point.

"Don't you think that if I knew that, I would be halfway through solving it right now?" Tony practically screamed. Clint noticed Steve's jaw clench in annoyance, Tony and Steve had worked out most of their differences since the attack on New York almost a year ago, but they would still butt heads on a regular basis. So Clint decided to stay out of the line of fire on this one and let them work this out.

"What I meant was what happened up here?" Steve asked stiffly.

Tony realized that now was not the time for another biting remark and decided to answer like a normal human being, well semi normal anyway. "I was in the living room working on one of my repulsor's because Pepper has been saying that I spend too much time in the lab, so I decided to mix it up a bit. All of a sudden, the lights went out and there were these weird soldier type things trying, and failing I might add, to pull off the storm troopers look, but that's beside the point. They tried to shoot at me, I ran, and was just about to take them out single handedly when you two interrupted." Tony stopped to throw an annoyed look at Clint and Steve, earning an eye role from Clint. "And yah, that's pretty much it, so what's your take on this Capsicle?"

Clint turned his attention back to their leader as he retold what they'd encountered and what they had learned so far, which wasn't very much Clint realized when he actually had to listen to it. Tony listened intently, pacing back and forth in front of them as Steve talked. His expression was a mixture of worry and anger, Clint could understand the anger, after all this was _his _tower that was infiltrated.

As soon as Steve finished Tony abruptly stopped pacing, "We need to get to my lab" he declared matter-of-factly.

"What?" Steve and Clint asked at the same time, Clint resisted the urge to say jinx.

"If we get to the lab, I can override the power outage and lock down the tower so that even if they have managed to capture the rest of the team they won't be able to go anywhere." Tony replied.

"Like shooting fish in a barrel." Clint stated letting a small smirk play at the corners of his mouth at the prospect.

Steve seamed to consider this for a moment before giving small nod, "Okay, we can go to the lab, but we have to make sure that we are not seen, so we don't give away our position.

With that, they made their way to the stairs to get to Tony's lab three floors up. Clint kept his eye out for any sign of more intruders, but as they neared the door to Tony's lab, there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary that Clint could see. Steve had to force the door to the lab open because of the lack of power. It was pitch black inside the now open room, which made the fear in the back of Clint's mind grow stronger.

Slowly Steve made his way into the dark room, Clint and Tony following close behind, adrenaline making Clint's hands shake the slightest bit on his readied bow. As soon as they had made it a few feet into the room the hairs on the back of Clint's neck stood on end, "Something's not right." he whispered in Cap's direction. No sooner had the words left his mouth then the lights of the lab flashed on effectively blinding the three heroes'. When they were able to force their eyes open, panic rose in their chests. Surrounding them, were about fifty attackers all with their weapons pointed at them.

Clint and Steve immediately readied their weapons to fight their way out if they had to; they'd each worked with slimmer odds then this before. Tony opted to stand behind them calculating how fast he could get into one of his suits, when their train of thought was interrupted.

"Drop your weapons." Stated one of them calmly.

"Not likely." Clint nearly growled, pointing his bow on the one who had spoken. Who, if he had to guess was the one in charge here.

"What is it that you hope to accomplish here?" Steve asked from Clint's side.

"You'll find out soon enough." The leader replied. Clint could have sworn he saw him smile for a second; oh he really wanted to shoot him right now. "Now I won't ask again," He continued in a low voice, "Drop. Your. Weapons."

Clint did not lower his bow "Give us a reason" he challenged.

Now the guy was smiling, it never voted well when the bad guys smiled. "How about three reasons." And he then moved to the side gesturing behind him to a group of solders pointing their guns at something on the floor. Clint felt his heart stop in his chest, lying unconscious on the ground were Bruce, Thor, and Natasha. "So are there any more questions?" The leader asked, letting the gravity of the situation sink in.

Clint heard the metal clang as Steve put his shield on the ground, and giving one more death glare at the man in front of him Clint followed suite put his bow down as well. As he did he caught a quick glance back at Tony who looked totally frustrated that he didn't have his suit on at the moment.

"Very good." The man made a small gesture with his hand and before Clint had time to react, something hard slammed into the back of his head. As he dropped to the ground he thought he heard some shouting before everything went black.

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**Authors Note: Another cliff hanger! Sorry this took me so long to get out but this chapter gave me SO much trouble, and writers block nearly tackled me to the ground. I fought back though and this chapter turned out to be a lot longer so hopefully that makes up for it. Next chapter will for sure be out by next weekend maybe before that if I get a lot done. Hope you enjoyed it enough to follow and favorite, and PLEASE review to tell me what you like or don't like or if you have any suggestions. Remember reviews will motivate me to write faster. **


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